For years, Emerson’s journalism program has been recognized as one of the best in the country. Since the journalism department’s inception in 1997, the college has prided itself on preparing students to “adapt to—and shape—this rapidly changing field.” To achieve this, Emerson offers an ever-changing multimedia curriculum. Last semester, the department introduced a journalism AI collaborative, where students are guided to investigate best practices for using AI tools in journalism.
Simultaneously, Americans’ consumption of news has experienced its own rapid changes. Gen Z increasingly gets news from a wide range of non-traditional news sources, such as podcasts, independent social media news sites, and influencers. This year, for the first time in history, social media overtook TV as Americans’ top news source.
In this new reality, what does it really mean to be a journalist?
Associate Journalism Professor Paul Niwa, who has taught at Emerson for 24 years, said the public’s distrust in the institution of journalism, as well as their interest in pursuing a variety of news sources, is not necessarily a bad thing.
“That just means that we have a public that has a broader thinking mind and an independent mindset,” Niwa, who also teaches the AI collaborative, said. “People are making decisions for themselves.”
It is no longer the days of the 70s when people had only a few news options to choose from, Niwa said.
“It was the only truth you got. There was no way to get other opinions, because where are you going to get them? There was one newspaper and two channels on TV,” he said. “Today, you are bombarded. You can go anywhere you want [to get news].”
American trust in professional journalists is at its lowest point in more than five decades. This month, according to a Gallup poll, only 28% of surveyed people expressed a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television, and radio to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. These numbers are down from 31% last year and 40% five years ago.
Interim Dean of the School of Communication Paul Mihailidis, who took on this role in July, believes the health of society is reflected by how robust public institutions like journalism are. He said that interpreting the public’s relationship to journalism is complicated—and that reality is “something we as journalists struggle with.”
“Healthy skepticism is always a positive disposition. But if you get down to cynicism or blind distrust, then you eventually stop wanting to invest in that institution,” Mihailidis said. “A journalist is only as effective as the readers are able to engage.”
Doug Struck, a senior journalist-in-residence at Emerson, has taught at the college since 2009 and attributes much of today’s distrust in journalism to “whipped up animosity by [President] Donald Trump, who has publicly called journalists treasonous, has said they are traitors to the government, and has laughed about having them shot,” he said.
President Trump has a history of voicing his disapproval of the American press. Shortly after taking office in 2017, he called the nation’s news media “the enemy of the American people.”
In September, the Trump administration demanded journalists sign a new Pentagon press policy, which prohibits them from gathering any information that hasn’t been expressly authorized for release. Under the policy, the Pentagon can revoke press passes for anyone it deems a security threat. Major media outlets, like CNN, ABC, CBS, and even Fox News, a network that is generally supportive of the Trump administration, have refused to sign the policy by the deadline, which was this Tuesday.
“NPR will never be party to limitations on the independence of the press and the objective, fact-based reporting of our journalists,” Thomas Evans, NPR’s editor in chief, wrote in a statement. “We will not sign the Administration’s restrictive policy that asks reporters to undermine their commitment of providing trustworthy, independent journalism to the American public.”
Before this, over the summer, Trump signed a bill that eliminated all federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which includes NPR, PBS, and their member stations. This March, the White House barred the Associated Press from the White House press pool.This came after the organization said that it would continue using the term Gulf of Mexico when referring to the body of water after Trump signed an executive order renaming it the Gulf of America. AP called this viewpoint discrimination, and a federal judge ordered the White House to restore the AP’ full access, ruling on First Amendment grounds that the government can’t bar journalists.
With increasing national political divide and international conflict, journalists are grappling with how to report freely, fairly, and safely. Last year also marked the deadliest year for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting data more than three decades ago.
According to Struck, when he asks students why they want to pursue journalism, he “feels sorry for them,” but also inspired.
“Many are going into [the profession] for very laudable reasons, and yet they are not going to get the due credit for their motivations from the public,” he said.
Multiple students told The Beacon that their motivation to study journalism continues to be serving the public and doing so fairly. Freshman said that in their introductory journalism classes, they openly discuss how the current political climate and technological advancements shape the industry.
Celina Cabral, a freshman journalism major, said her professors are realistic, yet still encouraging.
“My professors have been very realistic about the state of the world and definitely give us fair warnings, but they’re also giving us advice on how to navigate that as well,” Cabral said. “I’d rather have them be up front and give personal anecdotes, because journalism is not a major where you can just study it and rely on theory.”
Struck said that telling the truth while being encouraging is not a contradiction—honesty in the classroom is doing a service to his students.
“It’s what we do as journalists,” Struck said. “We are obligated and trained to say ‘This is what it is.’ I’m not going to gloss over the facts. These are the problems. These are the obstacles. And yet, there still are solutions to be found. There’s still hope to be clung to.”
In the 2024-2025 academic year, enrollment at Emerson fell by 6%, which President Jay Bernhardt said in a communitywide email was caused in part by negative press following campus protests, which resulted in 118 arrests in April 2024. This year, Emerson’s enrollment and total revenue fell below projections for the second year in a row since the event.
In contrast, on a national level between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school year, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center found that undergraduate college enrollment increased.
Emerson’s declining enrollment is reflected in the Journalism department. This year, one journalism professor reported having their Foundations of Journalism course, one of three required introductory journalism classes, cut due to enrollment decline specifically in the journalism program, as part of the larger trend. While there were 64 freshmen enrolled in the program in September 2023, this year there were only 34.
“Even though there are fewer of them, these students are the ones that desperately want to be journalists,” Lu Ann Reeb, the chair of the journalism department, said. “We need them to be serious about this because it’s a serious business in the world that we are living in.”
Reeb recalled how moved she and the journalism faculty were when incoming journalism majors shared why they wanted to pursue the profession at the journalism orientation.
“I’m just so excited that they’re here and they’ve found us,” Reeb said. “We are dedicated to giving them the best journalism education they could possibly get.”
Demographers have long projected an imminent “demographic cliff,” a sharp and sustained decline in college enrollment attributed to a long-term drop in birth rates since the Great Recession in 2007. Now that those born in 2008 are turning 18, the demographic cliff will begin to affect universities nationwide.
Mihailidis said that there’s a lot of effort and attention put into how the school develops journalists for the needs of external audiences, while also continuing to uphold journalistic values.
“We see this as a really exciting time to double down on helping strengthen the program,” he said, pointing to the “revamping” of the journalism curriculum and the success of the new journalism graduate program, where this year, first-year graduate students are almost twice as many as the year before.
“We’re able to prepare students by doubling down on some of those foundational areas, but also help prepare journalists for the industries they are heading into—not just the ones that exist, but what the future will be,” Mihailidis said.
The American public is divided on what it means to be a journalist, and whether a formal college education in the pursuit is necessary, but one benefit of students graduating with a journalism degree is the rate of employment. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, journalism graduates currently face a lower unemployment rate than their peers, with only 4.4% of recent journalism graduates being unemployed, compared to the 4.8% average unemployment rate for all recent college graduates. For comparison, recent computer science graduates have an unemployment rate of 6.1%.
Though freshman journalism students have decreased significantly this academic year, there is a higher number of students pursuing a journalism minor than in previous years, Mihailidis said, with 58 nonmajors taking journalism classes. This shows that students are interested in learning about journalism and see it as a valuable skill, even if they may not be willing to commit to it entirely, he said.
And while the methods for consuming journalism have changed, the purpose of journalism, professors and students interviewed by The Beacon agreed, has remained the same even in an increasingly polarized landscape.
Niwa said he is focused on instilling in his students the curiosity to seek other perspectives, something that Gen Z has been less receptive to in his experience.
“Over the decades, there’s less curiosity, less interest, and less openness,” he said. “This cancel culture is really dangerous… it’s discouraging people from exploring views that they don’t agree with.”
What Niwa hopes to teach his students is the humility of knowing that no one has a monopoly on the truth.
“Now that’s a journalist’s mindset. And that’s what I hope,” Niwa said. “That before we get into reporting and writing, we appreciate the variety and diversity of these different points of view and experiences that people are bringing to the table.”
Struck and Niwa both said working with students has kept them at Emerson “longer than expected.”
“In times when I get discouraged about the future of journalism and the way it’s perceived, I come back to the realization that there are students who still want to do it,” Struck said, adding that he feels like he has the obligation to pass on his knowledge.
Freshman students like Cabral remain excited to enter the world of journalism. To them, it is not a choice, but a calling.
“I just feel like it’s my career,” Cabral said. “I feel like I’m in my element when I’m doing journalism.”
Jordan Berkwich, a senior journalism major with an interest in documentary filmmaking, pointed out that today everyone is empowered to tell impactful stories, which he does not see as a threat, but rather an opportunity.
“You can win a Pulitzer Prize with this,” he said, holding up his phone, “and people have. So that’s a really great landscape we’re in—we have democratized the ability to make something amazing.”
Berkwich will graduate with his degree in journalism in May and enter the industry with his peers, whom he has seen grow and learn during his time at Emerson.
“We’re an incredibly hardworking and passionate group. The effort that people put into every class assignment and discussion, and every project they’re doing is really amazing,” Berkwich said. “I see the people going into [journalism] and I know that they’re good people. It’s given me a lot more hope for the journalism industry in general.”
Mihailidis is not worried that public distrust in the institution of journalism will deter students from seeking an education in the field; in fact, he believes just the opposite.
“Whenever there is a lack thereof, it redefines the need to have storytellers for truth and journalists,” he said. “How that activates itself in society will change, and what it means to be a journalist will change, but the values are always there and they’ll continue to be.”
